Tokyo Workshop on International and Development Economics (TWID)　2019

To attend, register at here:

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東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）2階 小島コンファレンスルーム

in Kojima Conference Room on the 2nd floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

※日時・場所に注意

松山公紀 (Kiminori Matsuyama) (Northwestern University)

"Reconsidering the Market Size Effect in Innovation and Growth"

In the standard R&D-based endogenous growth model, a larger country innovates more and grows faster. Because of the homotheticity of preferences, however, it does not matter whether the large market size is due to a large population size or a high per-capita expenditure. In this paper, we develop a balanced growth model of innovation with nonhomothetic preferences, containing the standard model as a limit case. We show, among others, that, holding the aggregate market size fixed, a country with higher per capita expenditure and a smaller population size innovates more and grows faster under the empirically relevant cases.

Samuel Kortum (Yale University)

"Firm-to-Firm Trade: Imports, Exports, and the Labor Market" (joint with Jonathan Eaton and Francis Kramarz)

ミクロ経済学ワークショップ、マクロ経済学ワークショップ

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第1セミナー室

in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Yoshito Takasaki (The University of Tokyo)

"Disability, vocational training, and psychological externalities: Experimental evidence from Cambodia"

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第1セミナー室

in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

内藤久裕 (Hisahiro Naito) (University of Tsukuba)

Birth Month Education Puzzle and A Selection Hypothesis

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）2階 小島コンファレンスルーム

in Kojima Conference Room on the 2nd floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map] 　

※会場が変更されましたのでお気を付けください。

Raphaël Frank (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Epidemics and the Emergence of Labor Saving Technologies (joint with Oded Galor)

 

Shinichiro Yamaguchi

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）２階　小島コンファレンスホール
in Kojima Conference Room on the 2nd floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室

in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

※主催：ミクロ経済学ワークショップ

※共催：ミクロ実証分析ワークショップ

Although there are many views on how married couples process information, no attempt has been made to examine this process experimentally or to compare it to how individuals and pairs of unrelated individuals behave in similar circumstances. In this lab-in-eld experiment, held in eastern Uganda, participants get rewards for correctly choosing the identity of an unknown bag after learning some information about its contents. In some sections, some individuals work alone while other pairs share the information and make a joint decision. In some sections, individual partners see dierent information sets and the only communication allowed between partners is a recommendation. I nd that faced with the basic task, married pairs perform consistently better than individuals. However, married couples are signicantly outperformed by the teams consisting of unrelated partners. When players are separated from their partners, and can only communicate in a restricted way, performance falls below that of individuals. Married couples are not better at these tasks than unmarried pairs, but they are no worse. Wives are more likely to defer to their husbands than vice versa and are less sensitive to context in their deference. More generally, subjects place less weight than they should on their partner's information and more weight on their own observations. Taken at face value the results suggest that there is no obvious information-processing gain from making decisions with spouses.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

山内　太 (Futoshi Yamauchi) (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI))

Asymmetric Information on Non-cognitive Skills in the Indian Labor Market: An Experiment using an Online Job Portal

※主催：ミクロ経済学ワークショップ

※共催：ミクロ実証分析ワークショップ

This paper examines the impact of non-cognitive (socio-emotional) skills on job market outcomes using a randomized control trial implemented in an online job portal in India. Job seekers who registered in the portal were asked to take a Big Five personality test and, for a random sub-sample of the test takers, the results were displayed to potential employers. Outcomes are measured by whether a potential employer unlocks a seeker by opening his/her application and background information. The results show that the treatment group for whom test results were shown generally enjoyed a higher probability of unlock. That is, employers are more interested in those for whom they can see personality test results. Such a relationship was not detected in the pre-test period. The effect was more significant among female, more educated and/or more experienced applicants. We also found a significant impact among cooperative, organized, realistic, calm, and/or outgoing applicants, which seems to indicate employers' preferences.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室

in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

関　絵里香 (Erika Seki) (Osaka Univeresity)

Coordination and free-riding problems in blood donation (joint with Ai Takeuchi)

This article theoretically and experimentally examines the twin problems of free-riding and coordination failure faced by blood banks, by investigating the effects of information provision on the efficiency of blood donation. We augment a standard linear public goods game, incorporating the following features of blood donation: multiplicity of public goods (to reflect intertemporal coordination issues), current and upcoming upper bound demands (to incorporate the perishable nature of blood and the embargo period of consecutive donations), and semi-binary choices (to account for individual options to withhold donations or make donations and when). We analyze whether a provision of deterministic information on the potential blood demand (full information) would improve the efficiency of blood donation when compared to the provision of probabilistic information (partial information). The theory predicts that if each individual maximizes the payoff-sum of all players, then the full information provision would achieve donation efficiency in equilibrium. The results of laboratory experiment show that the full information provision does not improve the efficiency of donation, on an average. We find that full information improves intertemporal coordination, but it worsens the free-riding problem. Although information helps individuals to direct donations in response to the demand, it drives individuals to withhold donations to avoid potential wastage against the risk of donation over the upper bound. When the predicted total demand is relatively small, that is, when strategic uncertainty about others donation matters for achieving efficiency, the provision of information about intertemporal demand in upper bounds tends to lower efficiency because the "donation withholding" effect becomes dominant.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室

in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

手島健介 (Kensuke Teshima) （Hitotsubashi University）

※主催：ミクロ経済学ワークショップ

※共催：ミクロ実証分析ワークショップ

PDF version is available HERE.

10:00 - 10:45 Pol Antràs (Harvard University) Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains

11:00-12:15 Yoichi Sugita (Hitotsubashi University) Taiji Furusawa (The University of Tokyo), Amanda Jakobsson (Singapore Management University), Yohei Yamamoto (Hitotsubashi University) Global Value Chains and Aggregate Income Volatility [ slides ]

Lunch break

13:30-14:45 Davin Chor (Dartmouth College) Lin Ma (National University of Singapore) Contracting Frictions in Global Sourcing: Implications for Welfare [ slides ]

15:00-16:15 Daisuke Fujii (The University of Tokyo) International Trade and Domestic Production Network [ slides ]

16:30-17:45 Pol Antràs (Harvard University) Evgenni Fadeev (Harvard University), Teresa Fort (Dartmouth College), Felix Tintelnot (The University of Chicago) Global Sourcing and Multinational Activity: A Unified Approach [ slides ]

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）2階 第3セミナー室 in Seminar Room 3 on the 2nd floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Stacey Chen （National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies ）

Estimating the Effect of Maternal Education on Child Health Using Data from 20 African Countries

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）2階 第3セミナー室

in Seminar Room 3 on the 2nd floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Leonardo Martinez (International Monetary Fund)

Constrained efficient borrowing with sovereign default risk (with Juan Carlos Hatchondo and Francisco Roch)

We solve a quantitative Eaton-Gersovitz sovereign default model with long-term debt and constrained efficient borrowing, i.e., with a Ramsey government that decides the future borrowing path taking as given future (ex-post optimal) default decisions. The Ramsey government improves upon the Markov government because the Ramsey government takes into account how borrowing decisions in period t affect the borrowing sets in periods before t. We show that compared with the Markov condition, the optimality condition for the Ramsey government can be written with only one additional state variable. We use the Ramsey condition to solve for the constrained efficient borrowing path. Simulations show that more than 80\% of the default risk would be eliminated by a Ramsey government, with small reductions in indebtedness. We also find that the Ramsey government does not promote a less procyclical fiscal policy and may even buy back debt in bad times. A debt ceiling could be as successful in reducing the default risk and would achieve 60\% of the welfare gain that the Ramsey planner achieves. In addition, starting with high initial debt, compared with a Markov government, a Ramsey government has a higher probability of completing a successful deleveraging (without defaulting) even though it chooses weaker austerity. These findings underscore the importance of governments' efforts to constrain fiscal policies with fiscal rules.

Joel Rodrigue (Vanderbilt University)